1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and an image processing method, in which an electronic file is created from optically reading (scanning) a paper document.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, by connecting to the Internet, it is possible to access a large amount of information. Further, such an environment that any person can connect to the Internet is being provided.
Further, in order to make it possible to obtain detailed information, which may not be possible to include in a visually printed image or characters of a magazine, a newspaper column, an advertisement, or such, a two-dimensional code is attached to such visually printed information for including a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), a linkage destination, or such.
In this connection, creation of image data from encoding binary data, character data or such, has come into wide use. For example, a QR code (registered trademark) is known as a means for providing a code with high reliability provided with an error correction code, which is standardized by JIS (Japan Industrial Standard). In this regard, see JIS X0510 “two-dimensional code symbol (QR code basic specification)”. By applying a two-dimensional code such as a QR code, it is possible to encode a much amount of data, in comparison to a traditional barcode.
Japanese Patent No. 3518304 discloses an information reading system by which, as described above, a document in which a URL is inserted in a form of a two-dimensional code is printed as a paper document, the URL information decoded from the two-dimensional code when the paper document is read by means of a camera is displayed.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2005-149096 discloses an image processing system searching a predetermined document from a database with the use of attached information such as a two-dimensional code or such (pointer information providing a storage location) included in a paper document.
Further, character information managed in such a form of printed on a paper document may be converted into image data as electronic data by means of an optical reading device or such, and further, may be converted into text data by means of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. Thus, an electronic file may be created from the character information.